Small Business in Canada and the Future of Marketing

People sometimes ask why we work with small businesses and people just starting out. 

The main reason why we started CRFT New Media was to provide the support we wished that we had when we were getting started, while doing what we love. Starting a new business, NGO, big art project, or other initiative has various levels of risk. It also involves navigating systems you might be unfamiliar with and building new skills. These can sometimes be significant barriers to making something happen that could otherwise greatly benefit the community. We've gone through the processes and made the mistakes so you don't have to, and we want to support you in getting to where you want to be using the skills that we have. 

Digital communication and communication tools are rapidly changing and have the ability to make a big difference for people just entering the market or entering a new phase of growth. You don't have to break your bank to get your message out, and if it's something that will benefit the community as a whole we'll bend over backwards to make it happen. Marketing is no longer about one way communication. More than ever, it's about relationships and dialogue.

We work with the clients we do because we believe in them. Our clients are people who practice social responsibility or contribute to the community in meaningful ways. Evolution Carpentry for example has a focus on sustainable building practices. Double Lunch Productions is dedicated to promoting the music community of Edmonton. Balan-Baalis provides trauma and healing support to refugees. The Alberta Men's Network is dedicated to supporting men in having healthy relationships and improving personal well-being. You've got a vision, we want to make it happen. 

We believe that a company is only as valuable as it's social contributions, and that social contributions are a whole lot more than just contributing to GDP and providing employment. It means giving to the community deliberately. We believe that small businesses emerging at this time have a big role to play in this evolving landscape and we want to support them in making the impact they want to. 

Just like our fellow Gen Y peers, we support socially responsible businesses, local economies, community development, the enrichment the arts bring to communities, and maintain an entrepreneurial attitude toward problems.  

 

According to Industry Canada:

• In Canada, over 100,000 businesses started on average per year between 2002-2007.
  
• As of December 2015, there were 1.17 million employer businesses. Of these, 1.14 million (97.9%) businesses were small businesses.
  
• Alberta has the most SMEs (Small and Medium sized Enterprises) relative to the population, with a ratio of 50 per 1,000 population.
  
• Micro-enterprises (firms with 1 to 4 employees) constitute 54.1% of all private employers. If employer businesses with 5 to 9 and 10 to 19 employees are included, they account for 86.2% of employer businesses.
  

Canada is a country of small businesses, entrepreneurs, and deep community roots. In our view, every business and organization is an act of community development that should strengthen and build others up through the valuable service it provides.

CRFT New Media based in Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta, Canada, works with small businesses, non-profits, community groups, artists, and other visionaries to come up with affordable and accessible marketing and communications solutions. 

Three Easy Ways to be More Charismatic

Some people seem magnetic to us. What is it about them? Do they have some quality we admire or respect greatly? How are they so charismatic? 

Chances are we wish we could have more of that aura that allows them to seem so likeable and influential. 

A lot of research has now been done into charisma and what it is that makes someone charismatic. Much of it has to do with certain things we've already discussed like body language and how we communicate, but let's dig into a few easy ways we can all become a bit more charismatic.

My google search defined charisma right away as "compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others". Let's not confuse attractiveness for physical qualities though. Attraction is a psychological state that, like everything, depends on context. So far charisma sounds a lot like being likeable and persuasive, but also revered. In other words, it means that people admire and respect you enough to allow your influence, and more so than they might normally. 

Clearly charisma is very helpful to us if we can learn how to be better at it, and we'll get to some easy ways to practice charisma soon but first let's make a few things clear:

• Nobody is born charismatic.

• Nobody with great charisma is charismatic 24/7. 

• Since being charismatic mostly has to do with behaviours and the social and cultural context of the behaviours, it is something we can all learn to do better through practice. 

I also want to stress that charisma takes many forms. Just like we talked about with power, we all have strengths, so don't wear yourself out stressing about how you think your voice sounds weird, or you aren't loud enough, or sexy enough, graceful enough, or brilliant enough. Charisma is mostly about becoming self-aware so we can build on our strengths and minimize our weaknesses.  
   
We have to let go of the idea that we are not charismatic, because we will never be what we don't allow ourselves to be. Even if you don't think of yourself as charismatic, drop the idea entirely that you are incapable of being so. 

Bias is going to be a theme of this article, and one of the psychological factors that sometimes hurts us is negativity bias. We tend to focus on the bad and not remember the good so much. Sometimes this helps us grow when we think critically about something genuinely terrible that we did, but sometimes it inhibits us from moving on or thinking of ourselves as the capable and competent people that we truly can be. 

Remember, none of us are perfect by the cultural standards imposed on us, but there are a few things we can do that have been proven time and again to improve our charisma. They have a lot less to do with superficial factors as they do with interpersonal skills we can all practice.

1. Question yourself 

You might be thinking "What do you mean, question myself? You just spent a paragraph telling me that I am enough and that I'm special and to not beat myself up about how imperfect I am!"

Yes we are imperfect, and that's okay, but in order to get we really do need to give. 

One of the ways that we are imperfect is that we form biases. We all do. We learn to turn away from people who aren't "like us". We talk over them in conversation. We don't say hi to them in the morning when we stumble into work. Most of the time it's all very subtle. We usually don't even notice we do it, and we usually don't have to because nobody calls us out on it. Most people don't say "hey you're ignoring me" or "hey you're interrupting me" because they're polite and probably something they've become accustomed to. What they're more likely to do is care less about helping you out when you need something, and yeah, they're telling their friends about the jackass they work with on half price wine night.    

If we want to be more charismatic, we have to make a deliberate point of addressing our biases. We all have them and it doesn't help to pretend they don't exist. 

Here are just a few examples of factors we commonly form biases based on:

• Race

• Language

• Gender

• Social class

• Physical ability

Identify what yours are and deal with them. We can start by taking mental note of when we feel uncomfortable or defensive in a social situation or with a topic of discussion. From there it's a matter of asking ourselves why we feel this way and breaking down if there is any rational reason for it. If there isn't, which most of the time there isn't, it could be connected to a bias we've developed. 

Secondly, take a close look at some of those common ones that we listed above. There is a very good chance that even though we might think or believe in human equality we don't actually treat people fairly and equitably. Make a conscious effort to include people in conversations. Make a conscious effort to break down your own barriers to treating others fairly. Practice until it becomes something that doesn't require so much conscious effort. Then consciously remind yourself and practice some more. 

Here's an example of a real situation that I was in where I learned a couple of valuable lessons about bias and charisma:  

A number of years ago I had an important job interview. Of course I was nervous, as we tend to be in job interviews.

It was my first time being interviewed by more than one interviewer. There were two of them and they were both highly and equally important people in the organization. 

They were both pretty terrifying to me honestly, but I managed to make it through the interview and made the cut. I actually felt pretty good about how I did, I thought I answered their questions well and kept myself very composed. 

Afterwards, they gave me feedback which challenged my perception of the interview.

One of them asked me "do you not like me?"

I was completely shocked. They both laughed which helped break the tension.

"You hardly looked at me the whole interview, and barely acknowledged me with your answers" he explained.

I felt pretty embarrassed but when I thought about it, he was completely right. Their point in telling me this was that it was something I could now think about and work on.  

They explained that the interview was in fact staged to create a subtle "good cop, bad cop" situation in order to see how interviewees responded to different personality types. 

They were both about the same age, race, and gender, but one interviewer was more conventionally good looking, smiling, more charismatic you could say. One was more "rough" looking, he had some noticeable scars on his face, he refrained from smiling almost the entire interview, and when he asked questions they were challenging. 

Rather than acknowledging him as an equal, I turned away because on a subconscious level that I hadn't even noticed, I shut him out. As embarrassing as this situation felt, I appreciate this lesson every day, it helped to make me more conscious and open minded to addressing my own weaknesses.

Try to visualize this open mindset, ready for growth. Keep that open mindset as we continue to the second tip for practicing charisma. 

2. Be Curious and Listen 

I could have chosen to disregard the lesson I just shared from that story. I could have chosen to believe that something was just wrong with them and lament how unfair it was that they staged that situation without even warning me! How cruel right? 

The thing is, they were absolutely right and if I hadn't chosen to really listen to them I would have failed many future interviews and not caught myself making that same mistake again in other social situations. This is one reason why listening is so important, it can reveal hidden truths and vitally important information that we need to make good decisions.

 The other huge effect that listening has is it actually makes people care more about you. Surprise surprise, people want to be around others who care about them, value them, and pay attention to them. 

Listening is not just silence. Listening is not just empty turn taking. It is communicating that you value what that other person thinks, which really communicates that you value them as a person. 

Listening, and the precursor to it, asking questions, are some of the most powerful communication tools that we have. 

Be curious and ask open ended questions. Find out more about the people you're with. Pay attention and try to remember what they tell you. Not only does the act of this actually strengthen your relationship, it also will help you find meaningful common ground. We tend to see the world through our own little box and isolate ourselves from others or see ourselves as different or even opposed to them. Engaging in dialogue like this helps remind us that we are all much more alike than we are different, an important part of breaking down those biases we talked about earlier. 

Through this process of learning and discovering more about the people around us, we may just find that people become a lot more receptive to what we have to say as well. 

3. Help others

The last tip has to do with power. Something we've discussed at length, but something we can never discuss enough. 

Let's make one thing perfectly clear. Power is not charisma. Charisma may make you appear more powerful, but power alone is never charisma. If we think back on experiences in our lives, most of us know this first hand. Feeling like we were treated as less than by someone in a position of real or perceived power. It's frustrating and leads to resentment. 

Power becomes charismatic when it is used with kindness and giving. Like we said earlier, people care about others who make them feel genuinely valuable and valued. Power becomes charismatic when it is used to build understanding or give a platform to something. You'll remember your favorite teachers and bosses probably being the ones who made you feel empowered, who helped bring out the best in you. You probably felt that they believed in you and your ability. 

That's what it looks like to use power generously, not recklessly. Build people up, make space for them, include them, invite them to the conversation, stand up for them, pay attention to them, recognize their concerns and experiences as legitimate. If we recklessly use power and hurt someone, take ownership of it and take steps to make amends. 

Remember we all have various forms of power, identify what yours are in order wield them responsibly. People will appreciate it, just as you did when others did so for you.       

That's it! Just for a quick summary :

• Make a deliberate effort to positively engage others, especially those who challenge your assumptions and taken for granted behaviours and beliefs
• Approach relationships with genuine curiosity and listen actively and generously. Get to know people, find common ground
• Be self aware about power and use it with kindness

The theme throughout this is to make a point to show care and value others. If this seems unnatural, "fake it till you make it". We are all creatures of habit, but more importantly we are creatures who form habits through practice!